To reach 270, Trump’s team is aiming to capture America’s Rust Belt — specifically, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin — where polls generally show him performing better than Mitt Romney did at this point in 2012. If he can capture Florida and keep North Carolina — the 2012 red state of the lightest hue — a strong showing that includes capture of the Rust Belt could, Trump’s team believes, put him over the top.

But the odds are long, veteran strategists said.

“It’s a fantasy. Romney got 19 percent of nonwhites. Is Trump going to do better? I don’t think so,” said Stuart Stevens, Romney’s 2012 campaign strategist. “It’s a joke. It’s just talking. It has no grounding in reality.”…

With Colorado and Virginia trending Democratic in recent cycles and Nevada and other states with high Hispanic populations a long shot for Trump, Pennsylvania is increasingly viewed as Trump’s best pickup chance — the state that, provided he wins Ohio and Florida, could get him to 270. But even with strong support from working-class whites in the western part of the state and conservatives in central Pennsylvania’s “T” region, Trump’s only chance of pulling the upset rests on his ability to broaden his support in the voter-rich “collar” counties outside Philadelphia, where Romney lost in 2012 by 14 points.

Trump won the Pennsylvania primary but saw his vote total in those swing suburban counties come in 25 points lower than his support in the western part of the state that borders Appalachia, where he won close to 8 in 10 votes in some places.